Friday

As you can tell from the lack of update, I have been very much enjoying finishing University and not having to revise, write or think about anything.

Some quite interesting things have happened to me in these past couple of weeks and I look forward to sharing them with you when I’m a) not so tired and b) confident that it is okay to share it openly..

In the meantime, thank you for still checking even though I’ve been rubbish at updating this, enjoy your weekend and try and do something funny

And here’s a Rebecca Black meme, because they’re still funny…

You Don’t Have to be a Prostitute – but if you are…

Image via Wikipedia

It turns out studying Sociology isn’t all just talking about why David Beckham is famous and how we should run our schools. I’m quite left-wing politically, I’m quite open to the idea of optimism in regard to society generally. But it seems that at any point, in any number of ways, society is always ready to let me down.

My exam on Thursday is on ‘Sexuality’. That sounds quite fun right? Talking about what makes people gay or straight, the different types of masculinity, why feminists are so annoying etc. Nope. Though there are elements of that, I have been reading all day about Prostitution and Sex Trafficking. It’s morbid stuff. It does however, throw up some good debates and arguments.

Should prostitution be legalised? Should it be clamped down? What are the benefits or restrictions of each?

Having done some reading on these sorts of issues today, I firmly believe that prostitution should be legalised. It’s just a bit of fun right? Only joking. I think it should be legalised though, that bit I meant. Below are some notes I’ve made on the effects of Sweden criminalising the payment for ‘temporary’ sexual relations;

• Increase of the number of sex ads on the Internet. The number of bordellos appears to have increased
• Prostitutes interviewed in the mass media report that women with drug problems have been driven to desperation and even suicide by the new law
• Social workers agree that the law has made it more difficult for them to reach prostitutes.
• Police report that their efforts to prosecute pimps and traffickers has been made more difficult because clients, who before the passage of the law were sometimes willing to serve as witnesses, are now disinclined to cooperate, since they themselves are guilty of a crime (Nord & Rosenberg 2001).
• Social workers and street prostitutes say that the quality of clients has declined, and a recent report commissioned by the National Board of Police has concluded that that women are now forced to accept not only more clients (since prices have dropped), but also more unstable and dangerous clients than they would have accepted before the law, when there were more clients and, hence, more choice (Nord & Rosenberg 2001).
• Police harassment of prostitutes has increased
• The law has been a catastrophe for non-Swedish sexworkers – if the prostitute found with a client is not a citizen or legal resident of Sweden, she is immediately deported; in fact government prosecutors complain that in a number of cases they were unable to gain convictions against clients because the prostitutes they were found with had been deported before they could even give a statement
• Some prostitutes use law to rob clients or blackmail them

Essentially if you make prostitution illegal, you don’t stop it. You just drive it underground and make it more dangerous for the client, the prostitute, the government’s reputation and just about everyone else involved. On the flip side, if you legalise it, it is easier to regulate, it is more efficient for ensuring the safety of everyone, baddies don’t make as much money from it (though it’ll be nigh on impossible to stop completely).

I don’t really have a point to this post other than to get you all thinking. What do you reckon? Make it more legal, more illegal? What if you were the prostitute? There’s a lot more I could bring up on this topic but I’ll refrain for now and get back to revision.

See you next time, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel…

Test Transmission

One exam down.

Such a mixed bag today, I was all over the place. Had that sinking feeling when I woke up realising that I had to go through with something that, until then, seemed far off and was never going to happen. Then I decided I was going to stay in bed forever and hide and not need a degree or career prospects and that I would make money with some .com start up genius idea that no one had thought of. When I couldn’t think of anything and decided that this plan wasn’t as genius as I initially thought I got up and did all the stuff us humans do in the mornings.

I set off for Bristol at about 10am with my Auntie driving me. Instead of the radio (which drives me mad that such crap music is popular), I instead got my laptop out and whacked on some Stone Roses whilst we discussed all the things I didn’t know for my

exam, and the couple of things I did. The journey only took about an hour and half but by the time we got out I had just finished my third Red Bull and fourth paracetamol. I literally felt like I was buzzing. Since the accident last week (check the previous update) I have been getting incessant headaches that make me feel like Woody Woodpecker is having a go at my head for laughs, hence the tablets. The Red Bull is because I thought it would make my hand turn into a super hand and be able to write loads more. It didn’t. It just made me really hyper with nothing to release it towards.

After an admin error of leaving my ID Card at home I had to run around getting another one before going to a Coffee shop and going over and over and over the same notes until I knew them like someone that knows a little bit about something. It was nice being in Bristol and I bumped into a bunch of people I know, some taking my exam and some just milling around, avoiding revision. It’s a mistake I think to talk too much to others about what they/you know on a topic because you’re inevitably going to just intimidate each other, but I did it anyway and intimidated myself.

The exam itself was weird. It felt like an out of body experience. I swear I spent more time in the exam thinking about the fact that I was in an exam doing an exam than about what I was going to write. It turned out that the Red Bull did in fact affect my writing hand, but instead of giving it super strength, it just made it shake. Quite off putting really. 

The first question was ‘To what extent can the Media be considered to ‘contribute to the fear of crime”. I knew there was a whole section of revision entitled ‘the fear of crime’ which was fantastic for the people that had decided to revise that section. I hadn’t. It’s not a bad thing though. I went into the exam knowing I wanted to do the Media question and knew exactly what I was going to talk about no matter what question came up, and that’s exactly what I did. I think it worked too, I finished it with a bit of a swagger (or wobble in my wobbly chair at least).

The second question I chose was something like ‘Why is it hard to detect and remedy corporate crime’ or something like that anyway. This threw me a little bit. Much like the Media question I had revised a certain amount of information that I felt sure to be applicable to almost any question. That didn’t quite work here. I wrote strongly at first, but quickly saw the limitation of what I knew on the topic about halfway through. I staggered and ummm’ed and ahhh’ed my way through a couple of loosely relevant points before a real panic kicked in with about 10 minutes left. Then, it came to me. An epiphany. A revelation. I was going off the chart, I was going to be a maverick. People were going to talk about this for years to come. Or at least, my marker would give me a mark I hadn’t thought about going for. I said that the question that had been asked wasn’t the right one, that in fact if we’re going to be sociological (which is the point of a Sociology essay) then there was a much better question to be asked on the topic. I then explained my reasoning and finished about twenty seconds after they said ‘pens down’ (I told you, I went maverick, rules don’t apply here!). This change of tac at the last minute will either make or break my mark for that essay, so fingers crossed!

Now that I’m done with that essay I really don’t know what to think. The first one was solid, definitely. Confident and well paced. The second started strong, went to shit, and then had that ‘toss a coin’ ending. So we’ll see.

My next and final exam is on Thursday. It’s on an interesting topic but one that has A LOT of information to learn that I don’t know all that much about. Looks like my love.hate relationship with Red Bull will continue.

Anyway, that’s enough for tonight. Tune in next time, Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel

S

Death Cab for Me

Hello. Remember me?

I have been completely snowed under with work but this time next week it’ll all be over and I will no longer care about essays and exams. I know some of you who read this are at University too, so good luck with any tests you have!

As well as revising, revising, revising I had an interesting Tuesday night. To cut a story I’ve told a million times short, I basically jumped into an illegal cab, stopped at a store and left my phone and jacket on the seat. When I came back the door’s were locked and the cheeky cabbie said I’d need to essentially triple my fee and then some to be let back in (I’m guessing he figured either a bonus fare or free iPhone and trendy jacket he could never pull off). When I said no he went a bit mad and decided to drive off, hitting me over along the way. Fun times.

One night in hospital later and I woke up feeling like death. The nurse told me they wanted to keep me in for the day to monitor me, but ever the keen student I knew I didn’t want to waste a day I could be revising and so, like the super sly person I am, asked where the toilets were and just walked out the Hospital. I figured I was fine and that I could get on with my day. However, walking home clearly concussed, with a blood soaked bandage around my head and throwing up intermittently, I clearly wasn’t well. My flatmate knew I wasn’t feeling great as I was struggling to focus and keep my eyes open so back to the Hospital it was (this time with a proper cab company) whilst wrapping a towel round my head to absorb the now pouring blood.

Two days later I’m now stitched up, a bit bruised and sore, but feeling heaps better. I’m managing to still get some work done and am popping Neurofen like it’s going out of fashion.

Sorry for those of you reading this who I have already explained the story too, I just figure it’s easier to tell people to check my blog for the story than to keep telling it. I’m undecided about whether to post a picture. I think my mum finds seeing me mashed up a bit upsetting so I won’t for now.

Just ask if you wanna see some yucky bloody pictures and I can send one over.

Also, the police are on the case but couldn’t get licence plates from their initial check on CCTV. Will keep you informed.

Anyway,

Have a good weekend and good luck again to those of you with exams.

Oh When The Saints

Absolutely buzzing. Salomon Kalou, a footballer for Chelsea, today said; ‘If I had to choose which was better, football or sex, I’d say football. It’s 90 minutes of pure pleasure and I can’t always say that about sex’. Though I’m not sure it is true, it’s funny. Today came close though. I support Southampton FC. We’re rubbish. For those of you who don’t really get Football, supporting Southampton is basically like being kicked in the face once a week and then going back for more. I’m from Southampton and so I support them. Lots of people change teams to support the best ones, which, if it wasn’t for sport, would kind of make sense. However it is Sport so it’s ridiculous.

Anyway, enough rambling. Today was the last game of the season. For Southampton this has traditionally meant either fighting to survive in the league that they’re in, or failing and being condemned to at least a year of worse football, less fans, worse players and more embarrassment. This year however, was different. We’ve been promoted. We’re going to a higher division, the second best one in fact. Isn’t that exciting?!?!?!?! Yes. Yes it is exciting.

Anyway, I am posting a few pictures of the day more so that I can show my Dad who couldn’t be there, but thought I might open it up to you guys for something to look at. Enjoy

Love The Way You Lie – on your Essay

Just a quick one today. I’ll do a proper one about my birthday and what I did and what I got and where I went when I have a bit more time.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve been doing my dissertation, but I haven’t particularly talked about what I’m doing. It’s important to be careful though, when I talk about it, that I don’t actually write anything that is in it, because of the evil beast that is Turn It In. I don’t know how many people have used this thing before but it’s been my nemesis since sixth form. essentially what it does is take your work digitally, then scan the internet for any text that is the same. If 10% or more of your essay can be

identified online, then you have to go to a plagiarism meeting that pretty much won’t go well. The reason it’s as high as 10% is that it’s unlikely, when you encompass all of the Internet, that a phrasing of your sentence won’t be found somewhere else. Things like ‘it would appear to be the case that…’ ‘in hindsight it may have been better to have done…’ ‘and then the fish fingers set themselves on fire in disgust…’ are all pretty common so they give you a bit of leeway.

My friend (who I won’t name on the assumption that pretty much everyone in the world reads this blog) once got caught out for this. His essay came in at something ridiculous like 70 something percent. It turned out that not only had he cut and pasted a lot of his essay from the internet, but pretty much all of it came from one website. He got a letter to halls a couple of days later summoning him to a disciplinary hearing for plagiarism. After a few drinks and a lot of discussion, we had hatched a plan. An age old plan. One that I can’t believe worked, but did. He spent a day or two writing the essay from scratch, being careful to include some of the stuff he had cut and pasted and made his own, but properly referenced and quoted. He then turned up to the meeting with a facial expression we had practised and perfected (a mix of scared/confused/polite) and got on with it. He claimed he had no idea how his essay could have received such a high Turn It In Plagiarism score and asked for clarification. He was then shown his work to which he replied ‘WHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHhhhhhhhh, how sillllllllllyyyyyy, that’s not my essay!!!!!!!’. He argued that that was just a draft of his essay and he must have uploaded the wrong one, that he was really sorry for the inconvenience but luckily he had his laptop with him where he could simply show them the correct, completed essay. The key to this was definitely to still include a bunch of quotes from his earlier ‘draft’ so it looked authentically like a draft! I still can’t believe it worked. Not that it’s worth getting in the position to need to try it though.

So anyway, my dissertation is about (surprise, surprise) Social Media. More than that though, the thesis looks into how the emergence of SM into public use has shifted our identities and social relationships. I’m avoiding the debate about online/offline identities as the point of a dissertation is too apparently research something that has not been done before, by referencing a million other commentators on the topic. I know, perfectly sensible right?

One of the theories I’ve talked about is the Uses and Gratifications theory. This theory argues that people engage with the media for four potential reasons; Personal Identity, Social Relationships, Diversion (basically why we watch Friends) and Information. I first learnt this theory in my first term of year 12 and have managed to write about it in every Media essay over those two years, as well as a large number of my Sociological essays at university, I think I’ve even wangled it into an essay on race before.

Anyway, I’ve done enough writing for today. I’m off to watch the end of the football and then into bed with the lovely Tina Fey and her show 30 Rock.

Have a good one

Living for the Weekend (unfortunately)

So I have been cracking on with my dissertation over the past few days, and as a result, two things have happened. Thing one, I am incapable of writing normally. Instead I have taken to over-complicating my sentences in a desperate bid to soundintelligent and academically stimulating. It doesn’t work, it just makes me sound like a cock!Thing two, I find things like thing one interesting! I am being so BORING.I probably shouldn’t even update this until my Uni work is done, because then I might have something to say.Until then all I can tell you about is Twitter and Memebase which I blogged about last time. The only way I can get to sleep is by watching like five episodes of 30 Rock and trying to dream about being best mates with Tina Fey.

I managed to get myself out at the weekend, going to Lennon’s (again I’ve blogged about this place before) one night. I went with my cousin Laurenand her boyfriend Sam. Sam was in a baaaaaad mood. I think this will have something to do with the fact that when he text me at about 8, he’d been asleep all afternoon and still wasn’t properly awake. We managed to keep him out for a good while, even though he apparently hates bands with female singers (the only exception being Blondie who are ‘alright’ apparently) and there was one headlining this night. To be fair, they were bad. The sort of band where you are able to sing along before halfway even though you’ve never heard the band before!

Another night I went out with some old school friends, one of which I’ve kept in contact with over the years, one I’ve been out with a couple of times and a couple of others who, apparently, went to my secondary school and remembered me (I left after about one term). We met up in town and got straight past any awkward ‘so what’ve you been up too’ stuff and got stuck into a couple of pints. We did a bit of a tour of the bars around the area before ending up in a club called Orange Rooms

(my first ever check-in on Foursquare). After a bit of a dance and bumping into a few girls from primary school, which was kind of odd, we then headed for a late night curry.

I don’t remember the name of the curry house, but I don’t really need too as I’m not going to be rushing back. There were six of us, so of course, the first order was six pints of Cobra. I swear to god, I haven’t laughed so much in aaaages. For one of us, it was a real ‘should have just gone home’ time because the girl with us, one of Wilem’s workmates, had passed out onto the lap of one of the guys and only raised her head to mumble something no one could understand. It’s safe to say, with five guys around her, that pint of Cobra didn’t last. Then Ben (he’s the one on the right, he looks JUST like Bradley Cooper off of the Hangover, though perhaps not in this picture), one of the guys off of secondary school, decided to try a bit of Wilem’s curry which absolutely ruined him.

To be fair, it was spicy. I’ve never seen someone mix dry retching with coughing and hiccuping all at the same time. Every time he did it I literally erupted with laughter. The sort of ‘I don’t know if I’ll survive this’ fits of laughter as well. Then, five minutes later, I started doing it as well. Genuinely, hiccuping/coughing/retching. This only made me laugh even more which made me hiccup more and so on and so on. 

Unfortunately that’s been it for me, and the rest of the week I’ve been geeking it out. I have been playing around on my new iPhone 4 though, that’s been fun. It’s for work so I’m not really making that many personal calls beyond ‘be there in five, bye’ and the like. What I have done is download a bunch of Apps that work round this fact. I have Viber that is free calls and texts to other iPhones. What’s App that people with iPhones, Blackberry’s and Androids can use. LiveProfile which is more of the same. Skype which means I can call Hong Kong. So it’s not so restrictive really. Then I’ve got all the Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, Colour, Scan, WordPress, Tumblr, LinkedIn, TweetDeck, Evernote, Groupon, Guardian, Wikipedia, iMDB, Mashable and Empire type apps too. My personal favourite however is one called ‘SoundHound’. If you’ve heard of Shazam it works much in the same way but has no restrictions. What it does, if you haven’t heard of it, is it listens to the music you’re playing and will tell you what it is and who it’s by. More than that though, it gives you lyrics, options to buy in iTunes, YouTube videos, similar artists and all of that sort of stuff. I love it. I do enjoy just testing it though, with weird songs that not many people know (because I am cool and Indie like that, lol).

Anyway, that’s probably enough for today. You can tell I’ve been bored can’t you. It’s the wedding tomorrow (not mine), which you’ve probably heard something about somewhere. It’s kind of a big deal apparently. I’ll be honest, I’m looking forward to it. There’s a lot of hate for it on Twitter because it’s cool not to like it. But, when you think about it, people are estimating 2 billion people will be tuning in around the world, so one out of every three of you secretly are going to watch it! Also, Kate is really hot. FACT.